Luciani and the Triveneto bishops, that openness on the pill

A note, written for Paul VI, states: in doubt, one cannot accuse those who use contraceptives of sin. The text published by Falasca in the Italian newspaper Avvenire. After “Humanae vitae”, the bishop conformed: “Thought of the Pope and mine”

Pope Paul VI (left) and the then Cardinal Albino Luciani (right)

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Pubblicato il
13/06/2018

Ultima modifica il 13/06/2018 alle ore 19:18

andrea tornielli

vatican city

It is an example of pastoral attention, closeness to spouses in difficulty, attempts to explore every possible development of moral doctrine to meet the needs of the families. But it is also, above all, an example of how to be united -within the Church - to the successor of Peter. In the period from the end of the Council to the promulgation of the encyclical Humanae vitae, the openings to contraception manifested by Monsignor Albino Luciani, bishop of Vittorio Veneto, were well known. On several occasions, he had spoken about the issue in public conferences, letters, speeches. Less known is a confidential and not-intended-for-publication document, an opinion on the legality of the use of the progestin pill that inhibits women’s ovulation.

Stefania Falasca, vice postulator of Luciani’s cause for canonization, has anticipated in Avvenire (page 17 of today’s edition, accompanied by a commentary by the Bishop of Belluno Renato Marangoni) the document that will be published in the book she co-authored, entitled John Paul I. Biography ex documentis dagli atti del processo canonico (TiPi edizioni). The above-mentioned document is a note written by Luciani and adopted by the entire episcopate of Triveneto, to whom Paul VI requested an opinion in the months prior to the publication of Humanae Vitae (promulgated in July 1968), in which Pope Montini declared morally illicit the use of the pill and any contraceptive medium different from natural methods based on the calculation of fertile periods.

“It is not known, it’s doubtful. If in doubt, one cannot accuse those who use the pill of sin”

The bishops of Triveneto wrote in the note sent to the Pontiff, who had decided to take the discussion of this subject away from the Council and have it studied by a committee of theologians and experts. Luciani, who had a brother, Berto, father of ten children, and who, despite being bishop he spend a lot of his time in the confessional, wanted to seek a way: “We cannot absolutely be disinterested. If there is even one possibility out of a thousand - he told his priests in the spring of 1965 - we must find this possibility and see, if by chance, with the help of the Holy Spirit we can discover something that has escaped us so far... I assure you that the bishops would be very happy”.

The sensitivity of the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto on the subject was well known and that is why the then Patriarch of Venice Giovanni Urbani (who Luciani was soon to be called upon to succeed) entrusted him with the task of preparing the document for the Pope. The dossier was delivered by Cardinal Urbani to Paul VI, who evaluated it very positively, “so much so that Urbani, returning from Rome - according to Stefania Falasca, who consulted the personal agendas of the future Pope - wanted to deviate to Vittorio Veneto to personally report Montini’s positive comment to Bishop Luciani”. The typed notes of this document presented by the Episcopal Conference of Triveneto and of which Luciani was the compiler, have been found among the papers of the then Bishop of Vittorio Veneto during the research initiated by the cause of canonization and now contained in the biography ex documentis of John Paul I.

Luciani presented the document on 23-24 August 1967, while participating in the meeting of the Lombard-Venetian episcopate at San Fidenzio (Verona) in preparation for the Synod of Bishops. “The problem of births - Luciani introduces – experienced also in our dioceses, and somewhat obscured by the contrasting opinions that, after the Council, circulated in the press, requires, if possible, a forthcoming answer. In the opinion of some bishops this response can be moderately “liberal”. Without prejudice to the law of God”.

Luciani was aware of the couple’s personal dramas: he had also spoken about them with his family and several spouses, he had documented himself, he had consulted theologians and doctors. He was looking for a way in which the application of Catholic doctrine could also take into consideration the drama of conscience of many tormented Catholic couples. Stefania Falasca writes: “One must therefore distinguish - on the one hand - the reflection and the concerns of a pastor who is also a dogmatic theologian, who draws himself close and with great pastoral sensitivity to the difficulties of many Christian couples and therefore in favor of a greater deepening of the Catholic doctrine on the issue and - on the other hand - consider the bishop faithful to a doctrine that had remained substantially and constantly firm in the disapproval of contraceptive practices”.

Luciani explains that the “moderately liberal” is valid in a circumscribed and definitive field: “That is: we do not consider here the field, in which the Magisterium has already intervened (onanism, limitation of births through instruments and chemicals, which attack, for example, the fertilized egg or sterilize the spermatozoa or inhibit the nesting of the fertilized egg on the uterus wall). Here we consider the case of the only pill based on “progestin”.

These clarifications are then followed by this reasoning: “Some think that the use of progestin is “contra naturam”, leaning on Pius XII’s speech of 12 September 1958 to hematologists, in which the Pope declares lawful the use of the pill only for application of the principle of cause which has a double effect. Pius XII, that is, considers the blockage of ovulation as a bad effect to be allowed only if it is placed, simultaneously, a good effect. The speech I have mentioned poses some difficulties. It will, however, be licit to observe that Pius XII spoke of the pill as a medicine and “a remedy for the exaggerated reactions of the uterus and the body”, not of the pill as an imitation of the “progesterone”; it was not proposed thus to examine whether it was licit to imitate nature, repeating and prolonging natural effects. He rather supposes that the prevented ovulation is something evil, without however studying our question purposely”.

“Today , scientific studies - continues Luciani’s note - have better revealed the nature and the tasks of the progesterone; it seems that we can study the problem from a new point of view and say at least that there is the dubium iuris. An indication comes from the famous footnote 14 to n. 51 of Gaudium et Spes, where, among the cited Magisterium documents, which condemn all forbidden ways within the regulation of births, we have searched in vain for the September 12, 1958 Speech. And yet there those in the Commission (pro studio populationis, familiae et natalitatis), who had asked for that quote out loud”.

Considering these reasons, Luciani dwells on natural laws: “Some say: nature has established that women have ovulation every month. Yes, but nature itself suspends ovulation during pregnancy and lactation and after menopause. We must also be careful not to take “nature” in the narrow sense. Nature wants us to be heavier than the air, for example, but we are right to travel by air, imitating the natural principle by which birds fly”.

These, then, are the conclusions that the bishops of Triveneto make their own and present to the Pontiff: “The Magisterium can certainly authentically interpret natural laws. But with great caution, and when the information at their disposal is certain. In our case, the data seem to be such that either we say: It is legitimate, or at least we say: It is not known, it is doubtful. If in doubt, one cannot accuse those who use the pill of sin”.

The document of the Episcopal Conference of the Three Venetias was delivered to the Pope in the spring of 1968. A few months later, on 25 July, Paul VI published Humanae Vitae. Of the concerns present in the note drafted by Luciani, the encyclical only accepts the invitation to continue the scientific study to “give a sufficiently sure basis to a regulation of births, based on the observance of natural rhythms”. Four days after the promulgation, Luciani addressed to his diocesans the letter entitled “After reading the encyclical”, in which he confessed that in his heart he had hoped “that the serious existing difficulties could be overcome”, declaring himself aware of the acrimony that the papal letter might arouse, yet invited everyone to adhere to the pronouncement of Pope Montini applying with promptness his pastoral directives: “Thought of the Pope and mine”.

The author of the book points out that is was certainly a different adhesion, with respect to that of other ecclesial circles, which welcomed the document coldly or openly challenged it, opposing the Pope, including some cardinals and bishops. Paul VI noticed the difference, and entrusted to that Venetian bishop the task of preparing some articles for L’Osservatore Romano. The approach of the future John Paul I also emerges well from the booklet “Thoughts about the Family”, widely distributed on the initiative of the Episcopal Conference of Triveneto, in which to answer some questions about the conduct of the spouses on the issue, and the confessors’ discernment, Luciani wrote: “Different is the rightful “sense of guilt” from the distressing, disturbing “complex of guilt” - he said - the first is the fruit of a delicate conscience, the second comes from a not well illuminated conscience and ignores that the Gospel is a message of happy things even for sinners, if willing to try, albeit with yet another effort, a sincerely Christian life.

Then he affirmed: “How will God judge?... one can think that God, seeing and considering everything, has not suspended his friendship with these souls. The context of a continually Christian life, in fact, authorizes one to hope with some justification that the will of those spouses has not detached itself from God and that their guilt may not be serious, even if it is not given to know it with certainty nor to be able to proclaim it case by case. This is my answer... I hope I will not be accused of wanting to place cushions under the elbows of sinners! This is the accusation that Bossuet has already made on this subject against Francis de Sales, who wished only to illuminate the laity who are seriously committed to good in their grave difficulties”.

Luciani’s approach, who would have been elected Pope, successor of Paul VI, ten years after Humanae Vitae, appears very significant today. The then Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, before the publication of the encyclical, thought otherwise. But once the Pontiff had expressed himself, as an authentic pastor he had conformed himself, helping the faithful to do likewise. And he had said about the encyclical: “The Pope’s thought, and mine”. He had not said: “Thought of the Pope, and mine because I think so”, or “Thought of the Pope, but not mine because I wanted a different pronouncement”, as instead many other bishops and cardinals did, causing much suffering to Paul VI, who since then and until the end of the pontificate no longer published encyclicals. And as up to the present day it has been repeated several times, in different circumstances, and with different Popes.